When Rob Spear took the reins of the University of Idaho
Department of Athletics in the winter of 2003-04, he was inheriting a program
in flux. The Vandals needed a consolidated conference home for their athletic
programs. They needed updates and enhancements to their 30-year-old facility.
They needed new revenue streams and more fans in the seats.

He was – and continues to be, the person for the job. His
passion, his competitive nature, his vision all were essential qualities if the
Vandals were to move forward.

One of his first achievements was securing a position for
all of the Vandal athletic programs in the Western Athletic Conference. His
ability to place Idaho in a western conference ended four years of split
conference affiliation for the Vandals. The days with the football program
competing coast-to-coast in the Sun Belt Conference and the remaining programs
in the largely California-based Big West Conference were over.

At the same time, he was charged with ushering Idaho
Athletics through a successful NCAA certification, which was completed in 2005.

With a conference home secure, his next mission was to
renovate the facilities where the Vandals trained, played and studied.

The Kibbie Dome was just shy of its 30th
birthday. The weight room was a veritable dungeon – dark with low ceilings and
aging equipment. The outdoor practice facility was mud for six months out of
every year. Locker rooms were small and dated. Team meeting rooms didn’t exist
nor did computer labs or study rooms. The turf in the indoor stadium was a
worn-out carpet that did little if anything to brunt the impact of a tackle.
Premium seating was a dream.

As he set about tackling the facility and funding issues, he
was resolute in continuing to hold Vandal student-athletes to the high academic
standards that reflect very favorably the University of Idaho’s legacy of
producing leaders of vision and integrity.

With a staff in place to guide the academic progress of the
Vandals, he started chipping away at the laundry list of facility and financial
needs.

First was a new Strength and Conditioning Center, which
remains one of the jewels in the renovation project with two-story,
floor-to-ceiling windows that provide an expansive view of the campus. Among
the state-of-the-art training and rehabilitation equipment is a hydro-therapy
pool – one of the first in an on-campus setting in the Western United States.

With the old weight room vacated, an ambitious locker room
project began. When it was finished, football, women’s basketball, track and
field, and swimming had new facilities in place to match the oak-and-marble
rooms already in existence for volleyball and men’s basketball.

That is what was happening indoors. Outside, the grass field
used for football practice as well as intramurals was undergoing its own
update. By the time it was completed, the Vandals had back-to-back 70-yard
SprinTurf practice fields – with lights. The conversion to an artificial
surface extended the use of the fields by more than thirtyfold for athletics
and the campus in general.

Next was the turf inside the Kibbie Dome. Because of the
multiple uses of the building, it has to be portable. Spear secured funding for
Real Grass Pro, which, when it’s not in use for football, can be stored to make
way for basketball, commencement, track and field, and even an annual home and
garden show.

Spear’s vision, however, was far from complete. As he worked
through these projects, he ushered the Vandals into a new era of marketing and
convinced donors of the need for a comprehensive athletic facility feasibility
study. Bold moves that paid big dividends.

With marketing and media rights revenue secured through
Learfield Communications, he could focus on the continuing needs of Vandal
Athletics. The feasibility study showed necessities totaling $35 million to
convert the Kibbie Dome into the best small stadium in the country. He worked
collaboratively across campus to secure the funding for life safety
improvements, which included replacing the 30-year-old plywood end walls with
translucent panels. The panels, along with a facelift for the entire stadium, make
for a sense of daylight. Even when it’s 30 degrees and snowing outside, it’s
warm, dry and windless inside the Dome.

There was much more to what he wanted the Kibbie Dome to become.
He wanted it to provide the best
premium seating in college football. In 2011, it became reality with the
opening of the Litehouse Center/Bud and June Ford Club Room.The club seats, loge seats and suites are
up-close and personal. Situated between the 30-yard lines and just 75 feet
above field level, fans don’t feel as if they’re in an aerie on game day. The
companion piece to the premium seating project was a new press box with all the
amenities.

As construction crews were busy inside the Dome, Spear was
at work from his office raising private dollars for a new video replay board to
benefit fans and new video systems to benefit the coaching staffs of football
and basketball.

Outside, with the 2012 WAC Outdoor Track and Field
Championships on the schedule, the aging Dan O’Brien Track and Field underwent
more than a facelift. It was completely gutted and renovated – to the tune of
$2.5 million, to make it a premier complex for the Vandals to train and
compete.

Along the way, he was charged with hiring 12 head coaches.
His thoughtful selections propelled the Vandals onto winning tracks and
garnered coach of the year honors in volleyball, men’s and women’s basketball,
women’s golf and women’s cross country.

The financial and staff investments paid off. In 2009, the
football team won its first bowl game in more than a decade, while the men’s
and women’s basketball teams advanced to post-season tournaments for the first
time in, literally, decades. Football season tickets jumped by 41 percent over
a three-year span and annual giving went from $1.1 million to $1.65 – and
growing.

The student-athlete wasn’t put aside as the facilities were
transformed.

Before the premium seating project was launched, private
monies were raised for a suite of team rooms and the complete renovation of the
athletic training and equipment rooms. Alongside the team rooms are study
centers to ensure the continued academic success of the Vandals, who continued
to graduate at a rate 30-40 percent higher than the general population at the
University of Idaho, which in and of itself is by far the highest in the state.
Collectively, Vandal student-athletes have a 3.05 grade-point average.

As further testament to the dedication to academic success,
the Vandals have won – in just six years in the league, a record six Stan Bates
Awards, which are given annually to the Western Athletic Conference’s top male
and top female student-athletes.

Reaching Vandal fans, who are spread over a vast geographic
area, was another priority. Hence the development of the Go Vandals television
network as well as an on-campus partnership with the school of Journalism and
Mass Communications, which produces a weekly news magazine that airs on
television stations throughout the state of Idaho and parts of Eastern Washington.

He touched the hearts of Vandals far and wide, young and old
when he established the Vandal Athletics Hall of Fame. A charter class of 100
individuals and five teams was inducted over a two-year period to make up for
more than 100 years of the absence of a way to honor Idaho’s most cherished
players, coaches and contributors. That legacy continues today with a bi-annual
induction ceremony.

Spear’s dedication to service extends beyond the athletic
department. He currently serves on five NCAA committees (Chair, Western
Athletic Conference Finance Committee; WAC men’s basketball liaison; WAC code
book committee, NCAA Legislative Council, and NCAA D1 Basketball Issues
Committee) as well as five University committees (President’s Executive
Leadership Team, President’s Cabinet, Strategic Planning Committee, Budget
Advisory Committee, and Operations Committee) and two community committees
(Gritman Hospital Community Advisory Committee and Gritman Hospital Strategic
Planning Committee). He is a past chair of the Western Athletic Conference
Council and the University of Idaho’sBanner Finance Implementation Committee as well as a past member of the
University of Idaho’s Presidential Search Committee and Dean’s Council for the
University of Idaho College of Agricultural and Life Sciences. His past
community committee membership includes the Latah (County) Economic Development
Council (2002-07) and the St. Mary’s Parish Finance Committee (2000-10).

Spear is a native of Butte, Mont., and earned his bachelor’s
degree at the University of Great Falls (1980), where he played basketball, and
his MBA at the University of Montana (1983). He earned his doctorate
(education) at the University of Idaho in 1993. He and his wife, Sandy, have
one daughter, Morgan.